Preceding and during the religious crisis in France, which resulted in
the Separation Law, a great number of books on the future of religion
appeared in Paris. The largest number of writers denied that there was
a future for religion, maintaining that modern economic conditions
are undermining the spiritual and religious basis of the life of the
masses. A minority, upholding Clericalism, foresaw a promising future
for religion.
A similar discussion on the future of the Jewish religion arose with
the advent of Zionism. In the first decade of our century scores of
books appeared in Europe, dealing with the nature and future of the
Jewish religion. As in France, during the crisis, so in European Jewry,
during the inception of Zionism, two distinct views were held as to the
future of the Jewish religion. One view saw that Judaism could hope for
no future in the Diaspora and that, if only to avert the destruction
of the Jewish religion, a homeland in Palestine was needed. The other
view was that Judaism, being non-political in nature, would continue to
exist indefinitely and that, as a matter of fact, it was created for a
Diaspora existence.
Today, when the Jewish people is once more at the parting of the ways,
the same question comes up again. Those who oppose Zionism hastily
affirm that the Jewish religion not only does not need a homeland in
Palestine, as a source of new inspiration, but that the very idea of
this homeland is incompatible with the Jewish religion. The spokesmen
of Zionism who, as a rule, do not worry much over questions of theology
and religion, have so far failed to take a definite attitude towards
the rabbis who oppose Zionism on religious grounds.
We think it high time to approach this question and to try to answer it
from a purely objective point of view.
Before we ask whether the Jewish religion has any future in the
Diaspora, let us see whether it has had any development in the past.
It is known to every intelligent Jew that since the appearance of
Maimonides, with the exception of the pathological phenomenon of
"Sabbathai Zevi" and of Hassidism, the Jewish religion has not
developed in the least. The rabbinic literature of the last 800 years
consists mainly of legal responses to which nobody will attribute
religious significance, because religion and legalism are two different
things. The rabinnic Jew has the same views on God, on the relations
between God and man, and on immortality, as prevailed among Jews 800
years ago. Even the synagogue and the Jewish ritual have undergone
few changes in this period. Many attribute this fact of religious
stagnation to the predominant legal element in the Jewish religion,
while others maintain that, even without this element, the Jewish
religion would not have undergone changes because of its existence in
the Diaspora. Religion, like any other phase of spiritual life, must
draw from life itself and if the source is polluted stagnation must set
in.
Many people seek to prove that the Jewish religion is capable of
development in the Diaspora, and as proof they point to Hassidism.
But even they must agree that Hassidism itself failed to develop and
that it resulted finally in a form of Judaism which is objectionable
even on æsthetic grounds. Hassidism, which claims to have a greater
freedom of movement than Mithnagdism, is today even more stagnant than
Mithnagdism. In addition, it is questionable whether the pantheistic
element in Hassidism is altogether compatible with the traditional
Jewish conception of God. All in all, Hassidism affords no proof that
the Jewish religion has developed in the last 800 years. It would be
no exaggeration to say that ever since Jewish religious philosophy
chose the path of Aristotelianism, it has been favored only with the
slightest development.
One must bear in mind that in the past the Jewish religion, though
more persecuted than at present, had better chances of development
than in our own day. The Gentiles surrounding the Jews lived a more
intense spiritual life than is the case today and in addition they
thought in terms of religion as the mediaeval philosophers thought
_more theologico_. Judaism and Christianity were absolutely separated
and regarded each other with hostility. The intense religious feeling
of the Middle Ages, the thinking in terms of religion on the part of
the Gentile masses, the hostility of the Church to the Synagogue,
the isolation of Jewish life and the persecution which must have
intensified the religious feeling, were all factors conducive to
religious development. However, the fact remains that since Maimonides,
the Jewish religion has not undergone notable development.
Is it capable of development in the future?
Today humanity does not think in terms of religion; modern philosophers
do not think _more theologico_ but _more biologico_; the synagogue in
the country where Jews are free is not isolated as was the case in
the past, nor is Jewish life isolated. Unlike the Jews of the past,
the modern Jew in these countries is actuated not by religious but by
economic and social motives and he has little time to give thought to
Judaism. To the average Jew in the liberal countries, Judaism is either
an unwelcome heritage or at best a synagogal duty. In eastern Europe
there are two sorts of Jews, as far as religion is concerned. There
are either rabbinic Jews, who are pious and naive, or there are Jews
whose views practically amount to a superficial atheism. Under these
conditions, it is hard to tell how the Jewish religion is to develop in
the Diaspora, or what its future may be.
The Reformers, of course, would point to the work of Geiger and
Holdheim. But is the work of these men really proof of organic
development in Jewish religion? Does the destruction of the bases of
a religion indicate development? Reform Judaism not only did away
with rabbinism, but it would also deprive the Bible of its religious
character, denying the divinity of its source and in addition
arbitrarily abolishing fundamental biblical laws for the convenience of
its practioners. Is there any intelligent Jew, with a fair knowledge of
Judaism, perhaps with the exception of a few Reform rabbis, who will
maintain that in these changes there is a trace of development? If
Reform Judaism can do no more than destroy what others have built, it
is not progress in Jewish religion, as its leaders assert, but merely a
ruthless iconoclasm.
We do not say that Reform Judaism is created by malice or by the wanton
desire to destroy, but only that it serves as proof that from present
conditions the Jewish religion seems to have no future in the Diaspora,
once it has come into contact with modern life.
The Jewish religion, a product of national genius, can live and thrive
only on its own soil. It can live and thrive only if it is part and
parcel of the whole life of the nation, because the Jewish religion, in
contradistinction to the universal religions, is distinctly national in
character and wherever the Jewish nation is hampered in its movements
(as it is, everywhere, in the Diaspora), the Jewish religion is also
hampered and condemned to stagnation.
The stronger and more intense the life surrounding the Jews, the weaker
becomes their own religious impulse.
This is well known to the Reform rabbis. We do not know how they
conceive the future of Judaism in the Diaspora, but we do know that the
only possibility for a Jewish religious revival lies in a national life
for the Jewish people.